Общее языкознание

Магистратура 2025/2026

Статус: Курс обязательный (Иностранные языки и межкультурная коммуникация)

Кто читает: Школа иностранных языков

Где читается: Школа иностранных языков

Когда читается: 1-й курс, 1 модуль

Онлайн-часы: 20

Охват аудитории: для всех кампусов НИУ ВШЭ

Преподаватели: Лукошус Оксана Геннадьевна

Язык: английский

Контактные часы: 28

Full Syllabus Ask Question

Abstract

The course offers an in-depth exploration of the scientific study of language, covering its structural, cognitive, social, and computational dimensions. This course aims at equipping students with theoretical and methodological expertise in core areas such as phonetics, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, while also providing some introduction to such modern subfields as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, or computational linguistics. Through a combination of coursework, seminars, and independent research, students are expected to develop strong analytical and empirical skills, allowing to compare and contrast different languages.

Learning Objectives

To study the main aspects and properties of language, as language structure, origin of language, language change, language contacts, etc.
To study typology of languages, to reveal common and specific features of languages of the world in their phonetic, phonological, lexical, morphological, syntactic, as well as genetic and social aspects.
To study, analyze, and comment on the key modern approaches to different language research, specifically approaches within such linguistic branches as cognitive and neurolinguistics, computational and corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics.

Expected Learning Outcomes

Students identify, analyze, and comment on the main main aspects and properties of language, as language structure, origin of language, language change, functioning in the society, language contacts, etc.
Students indentify, analyze, and comment on the principles of phonetic, phonological, lexical, morphological, syntactic typology of languages, as well as their genealogical and social classification.
Students analyze, and comment on the key modern approaches to language studies.
Students identify, analyze, and comment on the main aspects and properties of language, as language structure, origin of language, language change, etc.

Course Contents

Key issues of linguistics
Linguistic typology
Modern Approaches to Linguistics

Assessment Elements

Class participation
Active participation and engagement will be required in this course. All students are expected to have read the assigned material PRIOR to the class meetings. Class participation may be assessed in oral OR written forms (quizzes). It is up to the instructor to decide whether to give a quiz or not; students will not be warned about the form of class participation in advance, so they should be ready beforehand.
Online course test
The Test assesses the comprehension of the major lectures online on key issues of linguistics: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics.
Test
Test assesses students' knowledge of language typology and modern approaches to language studies.
Project
Interactive Linguistics Project: Languages in Focus: A Comparative Exploration Project Format: An interactive video presentation (20 minutes for 3 languages 25 minutes for 4 languages selected) where Master’s students analyze, describe, and contrast linguistic features of selected languages. The video should include: engaging visuals (maps, charts, animations, side-by-side comparisons), audio samples (native speakers pronouncing words/sentences), faces of students’ commenting. The number of students in one group – 3 or 4. Project Structure 1. Introduction. Brief overview of the project’s goals. Introduction of the languages being analyzed (language families, language groups, etc.). Why these languages are interesting for linguistic comparison. 2. Language Profiles For each language, cover: A. Phonetics & Phonology. Key sounds (e.g., clicks in Xhosa, tones in Mandarin, vowel harmony in Turkish), stress and intonation patterns, comparison with other languages B. Morphology & Syntax. Word formation (isolating, agglutinative, fusional, polysynthetic). Sentence structure (SVO, SOV, VSO, etc.). Unique grammatical features (e.g., cases in Finnish, classifiers in Japanese) C. Lexicon & Semantics. Loanwords and influences (e.g., Arabic in Spanish, French in English), idioms and culturally specific expressions. D. Writing System. Script type (alphabetic, syllabic, logographic), orthographic quirks (e.g., silent letters in French, digraphs in Hungarian) 3. Comparative Analysis. Side-by-side feature comparisons (e.g., "How do these languages handle negation?"), similarities due to language families or contact, striking differences that pose challenges for learners 4. Conclusion & Discussion. Summary of key takeaways. Why linguistic diversity matters. Open-ended questions for further research.
Exam
The exam is held in the written format and includes different types of tasks (MCQs, matching, terminology definitions, open questions, etc.) covering the topics studied throughout the course. The exam lasts 80 minutes.

Interim Assessment

2025/2026 1st module
0.2 * Class participation + 0.3 * Exam + 0.15 * Online course test + 0.25 * Project + 0.1 * Test

Course Syllabus